Inside Community Relations at NCsoft 14
jkdove writes "Many citizens of today virtual worlds are often faced with challenges of not only life and limb, but of the very fabric which holds thier worlds together at the seams. When the world breaks down on you or simply feel the breath of god a bit too closely on the back of your neck, it's time to call in customer support. There are many who believe that the big companies don't listen to the hardworking, money paying customers. We were able to sit down with Rich Weil, the Online Community Relations Manager at NCsoft and hear the human side of what doesn't get said in an email from a CSR."
Just thought I'd make note about NCSoft (Score:2, Interesting)
So I called in and the guy said that the cd key was actually IN USE SUBSCRIBED CURRENTLY! I was like wow, ban that jerk and then he said he'd make a ticket and I'd be in contact with someone who would provide me a new key soon. So this is day 3 and I only have 14 days to return this game.
I then get an email stating I need photographic evidence taken with a digital camera of the box, recipt and key. I don't own a digital camera or a scanner, I have 0 use for either. 2 days later they proclaimed I absolutely needed a picture and so I offered them the phone number of the store I purchased my game at as well as the purchase id, time to the second of purchase and told them the store could verify the cd key. This was not good enough for them and seeing as I live in a rural community, I'm not going to drive an hour to reach a city just so I can scan a case for a game I paid $10 for. So it went back to gamestop. I decided after that no more games from ncsoft due to their awesome support. Oh yeah and if you're wondering, yes the person that stole my cd key got to keep their account.
I cry BS on this supposed CSR process (Score:2, Interesting)
From the time I joined, in each and every issue they have been reducing the power of the Heroes. Issue 5 was perhaps the largest single reduction in power in a game beside SWG. Defense for heroes were reduced by as much as 60% in some cases.Issue 5 altered the playstyle of the entire game, and we as players were told that
1) It was better for us
2) It was how the game was always meant to be played by the development team
3) There would be no more power changes after Issue 5, they were happy with the way things were.
Then came Issue 6.
Previously you could slot 6 enhancements in a power, and boost your power by near 200%. So you could get say 200% more damage, enabling you to tackle higher level opponents in the case of stronger character classes,or enable you to survive in a group facing +2 level opponents in the case of weaker character classes. The system was altered in Issue 6 so that you could not use more than 3 enhancements of the same type in a power. So the boost was cut from 200% to 95%. Understand, this affected EVERY single power in the game. If your 6 slotted heal was healing for 3000 before, your 3 slotted heal now heals for 1950 now. THe monsters have stayed the same, or in some cases made more difficult.
Now recall the points above, the final statement issued by develoers/CSR was that There would be no more power changes After Issue 5. Issue 6 introduced this "Enhancement Diversification" which had the final result of reducing all powers, again.
The words from the developers were that they had this working since May 2005, and were just waiting on the right time to introduce it, that Issue 5 had been totally balanced with this change in mind.
And this was the way the game was meant to be played.
Questions by an incredulous player population as to why it took over a year and a half after its release for the game to be changed to 'how it was meant to be played' have not been answered by the CSRs.Of course it also means that those game journalists that gave the game stunning reviews were actually not playing the game 'The way it was meant to be played'.
There was an outcry over Issue 5 (Though most were able to adapt and enjoy it) and now Issue 6. There have been long threads on the official message forums, some of which have never gotten a developer response. You would expect, if you believe the spin from this interview with the NCSoft CSR, that we the paying customers would get a response,even if someone responds with a Negative, "We hear what you're saying, but we are not going to change anything at this time because..." for threads that have been running for months with over 6000 views and hundreds of responses, and several PMs to the message board CSR,especially since the subscriber base and board population of CoH is nothing close to the larger MMORPGs. Less people to deal with, should enable quicker responses and a closer community. Each Archetype for CoH has only just gotten a dedicated CSR point of contact, and some are more active than others in responding to player questions and queries.
I'm opinionated and quite vocal (what? you couldn't tell ?
Another issue is that City of Heroes hides the numbers behind the game. The game uses words like Moderate, Slow,Long to describe powers. However people have accurately checked the numbers using 3rd party stats gathering soft